I get relatively little news from my television these days. I read updates online throughout the day, and read at least the main sections of the print version of the Los Angeles and New York Times each morning. But my favorite source of news is the BBC World Service, who by themselves are worth the price of the monthly satellite radio subscription. This morning, driving to and from the gym well before dawn, I wept at the extraordinary descriptions of the devastation in Haiti from the BBC’s reporter on the ground in Port-au-Prince. There’s something about radio journalism that forces home emotion like no other medium. I’m not a very visual person, but spoken language for me has a particularly visceral power. I pulled over to the side of Pico Boulevard this morning, riveted and moved, as I listened to the interview with a man desperately trying to care for his one living but seriously injured child, a girl crying for her older sisters who had perished in Tuesday’s quake.
There are certain cultures of the world to which one feels an odd but undeniable affinity. Though I have no ethnic ties to the region, I’ve written before about how I felt strangely at home when I visited the Philippines a few years ago. I felt the same way when I walked the streets of Stellenbosch, South Africa. And yet there are other places (including some to which I have some blood ties) which do not touch me the same way; I have, on my mother’s side, a host of Scots-Irish ancestors from places like County Antrim — but I felt no pull to either land or people when I spent a week touring Ulster in 2002. I’ve met other folks who are privileged enough to travel who have felt the same way about places that surprised them. And this is true too, for me, of places I’ve never been. I’ve never been to Haiti, but it’s very high on my list of places I very much want to go, and has been for years.
In any case, I made an initial donation to UNICEF on Tuesday afternoon. This morning, I read this post by Andrea: Haiti’s Earthquake Could Disproportionally Impact Women and followed her link to MADRE, whose work on behalf of vulnerable women worldwide has been extraordinary. MADRE has a special partnership already in place with a Haitian clinic, Zanmi Lasante, and they are hard at work already distributing medicines, treating the injured, and providing life-saving supplies. A donation to MADRE’s Haiti fund can be made here.
There’s a lot to go with here. Yes it is interesting to see where one feels a connection to. I’m Jewish and I went to Israel this past summer to see if I felt that magical affinity that other Jews I know have referred to. I didn’t. As I suspected, it felt more like a Middle Eastern culture than what I know as Jewish. I felt more Jewish in New York, my hometown where I do feel a connection. Conversely, I feel a great deal of connection to the Carribean and to England. The people I envy though are the ones who are so connected to themselves that they feel at home wherever they are.
As far as news, I think it’s a great and worthwhile challenge these days to be a well informed citizen and concurrently to keep one’s senses from being assaulted by the garbage we call news and the velocity at which it comes down on you. Some of the coverage of Haiti I’ve already caught glimpses of has been so augmented by sensationalist production values.
So how did you choose Unicef as the place to donate to this particular cause? That’s not the organization I’ve been hearing referred to the most.
UNICEF already on the ground, longstanding focus on holistic care for children — and Haiti has a staggeringly high percentage of young people, many of whom are now orphaned.
That’s not a slam at any other group, of course. There are a number of outstanding NGOs doing first-rate work there. What I like about MADRE is that they partner with local clinics that will be there long after the attention has subsided.
Dear MADRE, I am part of a women’s group in Boston, Bassachusetts. On sunday we are collecting good women’s clothing, new cotton underpants and socks to send to women in Haiti…….where can we send it? when is the best time? Is there an organization we can deliver this to in our area who would know how to get it where it would do the most good? thank you so much!